Titles

A few weeks ago, I shared what would I thought could make a good title for a book. I still like it a little while later, but am thinking that catchy isn't the only requirement for a title's success. The content has to be interesting, too.

My recent extravagance in carbon expenditure - also known as residency interviewing has triggered some interesting publication ideas. Of course, the best idea has already been acted on by another frequent flier. Fortunate to get window seats in the exit row for my past 3 flights, I could concentrate on the view below rather than avoiding broken patellas or DVTs. And I got to thinking that the maps in the back of the airlines' magazines hardly provide useful information for the curious window-sitter.

So why not publish a guide to the most trafficked flight corridors that explains where you are, the topographic formations, and cloud formations from 35,000 feet?

One good reason is that other folks have already thought of this. A title printed in 2004 (Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air) and one in 2007 (America from the Air: A Guide to the Landscape Along Your Route) look to be complementary resources for the curious traveler.

Both look interesting, so I put them on my Amazon Wish List. Maybe there is still room for my ideas, but the core concept has already been done... One author even thought about providing an interactive CD for use in your laptop! (My idea was to adapt my book for a handheld computer.) So much for my business plan! I should stick with medicine.

Joseph Cornell vs. Mr. Wilson

So continues documentation of my eclectic vacation...

Today I finished reading a most intriguing book: Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder. This fantastic non-fiction narrative is a pseudo-biographical account of David Wilson and his Museum of Jurassic Technology written by Lawrence Weschler. It is an excellent window into the subculture of museum quality pseudo-science similar to the kind forwarded by the Athanasius Kircher Society.

The other thing I accomplished today was a visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. There I made a beeline for the Joseph Cornell exhibit (in the last stop of a traveling exhibition). In many ways, he is the chief influence for my Wunderkammern creations (albeit via David Francis). I spent about 2 hours in the 1000 square foot exhibit, and was thoroughly impressed. This show only lasts until January 6 and SFMOMA is the last stop.

In summary, my New Year's Eve can be summarized as Joseph Cornell vs. Mr. Wilson. To those of you familiar with this art and work (or with the interest in following up on them): which do you prefer?

Book Review: Saturday

Today I read an excellent novel and feel like transcribing a response before I retire for the night. This is a mini-review that includes two quotations and a few comments. My intent is to reveal only whether this would appeal to you: a prospective reader. Attention to the diverse tags at the footer of this piece should clue you to this story's complexity.

The review and summary of Ian McEwan's Saturday you'll find at your favorite online bookseller calls this book "post-911 fiction." While I am uneasy about this label, I suppose it is appropriate. The story wraps itself around the events undertaken by one man in a single day in London. The man happens to be a neurosurgeon and the day happens to be Saturday, February 15, 2003 - the day 2 million Brits marched in Hyde Park against the impending Iraq war.

The protagonist - Henry Perowne - continually analyzes his own emotions and his own perspectives. Reflective and introspective are not common descriptors of neurosurgeons. They have a reputation (an unfair caricature, to be sure) as cocky brutes who see the entire hospital as an enterprise to support their masterful handiwork. I suspended belief for this element of plot, but needed not forgive other shortcomings. McEwan accurately (by this med student's appraisal) incorporated both the complexities of numerous neurosurgeries and the uncertainties of neurodegenerative disease.

The contemplative neurosurgeon is hardly unbelievable. His two children are artists: his son a blues musician; his daughter a poet. His pensive musings frequent upon his inability to understand them. By the time I reached this passage on page 54, I had committed to finishing the novel today.

Once, on a walk by a river - Eskdale in low reddish sunlight, with a dusting of snow - his daughter quoted to him an opening verse by her favourite poet. Apparently not many young women loved Philip Larkin the way she did. "If I were called in / To construct a religion / I should make use of water." She said she liked that laconic "called in" - as if he would be, as if anyone ever is. They stopped to drink coffee from a flask, and Perowne, tracing a line of lichen with a finger, said that if he ever got the call, he'd make use of evolution. What better creation myth? An unimaginable sweep of time, numberless generati0ns spawning by infintesimal steps complex living beauty out of inert matter, driven on by the blind furies of random mutation, natural selection and environmental change, with the tragedy of forms continually dying, and lately the wonder of minds emerging with them morality, love, art, cities - and the unprecedented bonus of this story happening to be demonstrably true.

This prose is just my style, the modernist presentation suits my taste in literature and the subject matter is not too far from my everyday life to disorient me on this simple restful vacation I find myself on. A lot of other people said good things about this book, so now I've put my hat into the mix.

I leave you now with verse selected from the climax of the story:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Bonus points will be awarded to my readers who recall the author of these words.

Book Review: The Top 10 Myths About Evolution

A catchy title matched only by the cuteness of the cover. The first time I saw this book, I thought: "Oh no! Not more pseudoscience nonsense." Don't you worry, readers. It's not at all like that.

The Top 10 Myths About Evolution by Cameron M. Smith and Charles Sullivan is part evolution apologetic and part “Myth Busters” science writing. You'll not find any new arguments about the evolution debate if you are familiar with the controversy, but the short book does frame the discussion in a particularly accessible manner. Scientists who find themselves defending evolution to non-scientist Christians will find several useful historical vignettes, scientific points and rhetorical tools in this short book. The arguments against evolution are presented fairly, but it is clear that the intended reader is sympathetic to scientific perspectives.

Smith is an archaeologist and Sullivan is a college writing instructor. Ten Myths emerged from an article co-written by the two in Skeptical Inquirer. Published by Prometheus Books, Ten Myths is not particularly targeted to theist scientists – rare off-hand remarks are mildly derogatory of Christian fundamentalism – but it does not take much patience on behalf of the reader to extract the authors’ salient points. Criticisms of religion are balanced with a critique of naturism.

Smith and Sullivan cite in the introduction several reasons why the American public is confused about evolution. Public misunderstanding and ignorance of science is the result of poor science education and a paucity of good science programming in the media. The power of myth – here defined as explanatory story-telling – increases in influence in the context of poor background knowledge. In this context, it is most problematic for the authors when religious texts are used to provide scientific answers about the natural world. Ten Myths combats the misunderstandings of evolution in concise ten-page arguments that are for the most part freestanding.

The ten myths are presented in a logical order. The first chapters address the history of evolution (Survival of the Fittest, It’s Just a Theory, The Missing Link); next are surveys from a philosophy of science perspective (Evolution is Random, Nature’s Perfect Balance); the last chapter group identifies where evolution science and religion clash (Creationism Disproves Evolution, Intelligent Design is Science, Evolution is Immoral). Some of the sections clarify facts and history, while others present more difficult ideas. In the latter case, it sometimes feels like the conflict is oversimplified. Perhaps those chapters could beeffectively expanded in the context of a college 200-level defense of evolution course.

To satisfy the authors’ goal to provide a handbook that dispels myths about evolution, the chapters are well annotated with an extensive index that will help the reader return to a particular argument long after the initial read. The bibliography for each section is good, but not comprehensive. This is a short read (the body of the book consists of 120 of the 200 bound pages), and each chapter has a clever illustration of the myth to be debunked. This book is inexpensive and could be a useful resource for believing scientists wishing to better engage fellow Christians on the topic of evolution, or could introduce students or other individuals to some of the basics of the evolution debate. Folks with a good knowledge of evolution will have encountered these arguments before, but perhaps not in as a concise form.

The Top 10 Myths about Evolution by Cameron M. Smith and Charles Sullivan. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007. 200 pages, index. This review was written for the journal of the American Scientific Affiliation called Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.